| THE BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN |
By Dr. C. STUART GAGER
BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN
THE Brooklyn Botanic Garden is a department of The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. The institute itself, an organization of some 7,500 members, is the outgrowth of a movement starting in 1823, for the establishment in Brooklyn of a free library for apprentices. From these small beginnings, the work has gradually expanded, until now it is carried on by means of twenty-eight departments, representing various branches of art and science, and including courses of lectures and general university-extension work. During 1893-94 the establishment of a museum of arts and sciences was undertaken, and this movement has steadily developed, until now there is a large Central Museum on Eastern Parkway, beautifully housed in a building only partly completed, and in Bedford Park a wholly unique branch, the Children's Museum, described in The Popular Science Monthly for April, 1908.
The Botanic Garden movement found its first public expression in 1897, when the Hon. George W. Brush, M.D., introduced into the state legislature of New York a bill providing for the establishment and maintenance of a botanic garden and arboretum on park lands in the city of Brooklyn. The bill, which became a law on May 18, 1897, names among other objects of the garden, the advancement of botanical science and knowledge, and the prosecution of original research therein
